Men Who Obsess Over BBQ...and the Women Who Love Them.

What is it about men and charred bits of meat? Most men will wax on ad nauseum about the perfect way to grill a steak, the best marinades for salmon vs. chicken, or the optimal time to grill veggies. This from the same guys who refuse to boil an egg in the kitchen. But set a grill in the backyard on a hot, sunny day and you'll see a crowd of said men around it, conversing seriously with each other. It's like the Geneva Convention...but with beer. Perhaps they remember a nascent neanderthalic memory of throwing their kills over a large fire-pit after a successful hunt, beating their bare chests and waving their spears around in victory while their women looked on proudly inside their caves.

Granted, bar-b-qued food tastes great. Nothing says summer like the smell of cooked meat on the grill. But some guys go WAY overboard. Why buy a $1500 grill when a $20 cheap charcoal hibachi does the same damn thing? For $1500 that grill better serve me the food and give me a shiatsu massage too! There's blue-tooth thermometers, hamburger patty-makers (I have one - they're called MY HANDS), smokers, planks, injectors and lord knows what else.

I have a name for those special guys who obsess over grilling. They are Charred Meat Elitists. They will look down their noses at non-marinated beef. They scoff and snort at the grills with only 30 temperature settings. They turn their backs on those plebeians who cook their food in tin foil, and disown those who believe all cuts of meat are equal. BBQ snobs. Well they can sneer at my $3 package of hot dogs- it's just as good as their Asian-Pickled-Cucumber Marinated Octopus...and my kids will actually eat it.

Me? I tend not to like fire due to the whole burning-down-the-house and/or causing-the-most-horrifyingly-painful-way-to-die thing. And since I am the most uncoordinated person presently existing, being around fire is a bad, bad thing. Yesterday I learned that spraying PAM directly onto a pan on top of a gas stove leads to the creation of a mini flame-thrower, without the fun. So I just don't get the grill obsession. It's burned meat. Maybe I'm not ONE with the grill. Maybe I'm not into 5 different ways to marinate a shrimp.

Or maybe its just because I don't have testicles. Whatever.